Turned 2! (several weeks ago)

Today I realized I made this post for Elise's birthday several weeks ago and left it as a draft and never actually posted it.

Elise wakes up on her birthday.



She's come a long way in two years!

"You're acting like a two year old!" used to be a compliment for Elise. Now it's par for the course. Elise turned two last Saturday (December 11) and we had a very special party with family and some friends.

By the end of the day Elise was pretty drained. She fell asleep in Mommy's arms well before bedtime.



We are so thankful for the sweet little girl God has given us. These two years she has provided us so much laughter and so many memories!


Last week (early December) Heather and I were very blessed to have a visit from our good friends Daniel and Joy. They are also with MAF, and heading to Papua Indonesia like us. They were driving back from Boise to the east coast after finishing their training and stopped by for a couple days.



Walking by the Missouri River at sunset

(update to the post)....Incidentally Daniel and I are both here for the training in Spokane while our wives are back home :^(

Where's the Line for Jesus?

The airport in my hometown of Payson Arizona has a beautiful view of "The Rim" that our town is famous for. This morning I joined our pastor and fifteen or so other men to study the Bible at the airport restaurant. We were treated to this view as the sun came up and shown on the Rim.



And this is looking in the other direction over Payson



What a beautiful town I grew up in!

I was touched by a true story that Pastor Kraig shared, and I wanted to share it with you. I don't know where or when this happened, but I do know somebody wrote a song about it.

A father walked into a mall with his little son to see Santa Clause. Of course there was a line to see Santa Clause. The little boy said to his father "Daddy, where's the line for Jesus? Santa Clause gives me presents, but Jesus died for my sins. Where's the line for Jesus Daddy?"

Elise and Isla

We took a ton of pictures of those cute cousins, Elise and Isla on Thanksgiving. Oh and one or two of us adults!

And a video of the girls for good measure!

The other day Heather and I got a good laugh after we pulled up this next video on the computer. I guess at the time we were used to it, but since it's been a year since Elise did the scoot, we've forgotten just how funny and odd it looks! It now makes sense to me why there was a little crowd gathering around in the airport when she was doing this. God sure gave us a funny, unique little girl! She adds so much laughter and fun to our lives.

Drive to Utah

Yesterday we got in the car with my sister Kelly, her husband Joe and baby Isla and drove to Utah to visit family on Thanksgiving. Here's a few pics from the beautiful drive through northern Arizona/southern Utah....

Isla hangin' out in the front with Kelly and Joe

One funny thing that happened was the directions Kelly and Joe printed from google maps took us right through Zion National Park, with no warning. It would have been a pleasant surprise except for the 25 dollar fee to drive through there! That poor park ranger gets to break that news to people quite often. To avoid the fee we would have had to backtrack an hour and take another route. Thanks for the warning google maps! We definitely enjoyed the view as we drove through Zion though. We are planning to come back on Friday to Zion, so fortunately our fee is good for one week and we would have had to pay then anyways. Here's a few shots from zion. I notice that pictures don't really capture this place.

In Zion we ran into a family of big horn sheep right off the road, where the road enters a tunnel. Above are the kids hanging out on the cliffside right above the tunnel. Can you see them? They blend in pretty good! The parents (below) were right next to the road, paying no mind to the cars driving by, stopping and watching them!

Today is Thanksgiving, and I am very thankful to get to spend time with my Dad and stepmom Penny together with Heather, and my twin sister Kelly and her husband Joe and baby Isla. We get to meet Penny's sons Tim and Brian this Thanksgiving too, and our half-brother Scott is here too. Thankful to see family that we don't get to see very often.

Haircut

Elise got her first (real) haircut today. Guess what they gave her afterwards? She was very excited. She loves succers!

Here's some other (fairly) recent pictures.

It is a challenge to describe a ministry and its impact before having seen it in person. This is a challenge that Heather and I have as we prepare to serve with MAF and share this ministry with people. The best way to find out the specifics of MAF's impact in Indonesia has been both talking to and reading the news letters of MAF families who are already out there. But it feels like trying to soak in a beautiful view by looking through a paper-towell tube sometimes!

Today I read the newsletter of an MAF pilot from Wamena, one of the bases we very well could end up on in Papua, Indonesia. It was fascinating to read his colorful description of Wamena and the flying that he does. A few things that stuck out...

"One missionary told me "It took you 50 seconds to fly over what it takes me a whole day to hike!"

"I personally medevac a critically ill or injured person almost every day I fly."

(picture....caption) "Difficult flight.....taking a patient home so he can die. His mom lays her hand on her son while we pray before departing."

(picture....caption) "Best part....bringing a very sick woman to Wamena so she can go to the hospital."

(picture...caption) "A celebration at a new airstrip called Sinokla. For a time I was the only pilot serving this remote airstrip! A dangerous 5 day hike to Wamena from this village is a 30 minute flight for me!"

If you would like to read these stories for yourself and see the pictures, check out MAF Pilot Isaac Rogers' newsletter here

Idaho or Bust....

Yes, today Heather and I pack up to head back out to MAF headquarters again in Nampa, Idaho.

"Wait a minute, I thought you weren't supposed to go back until February?!?!"

That was our original plan, until we found this out......take it away Elise!

Yes that's right, Elise is going to be a big sister! Little baby Lundholm is due in May. We are very excited! And clearly you can see so is Elise. Well I don't think she really knows all that is wrapped up in that little phrase "sister" that we taught her to say. I think come May she may be changing her tune just a little bit! But we'll see!

So back to the story....what does that do with us going to Idaho early? Our little peanut is due at the beginning of May, right at the end of the two and a half months of training that we were planning on doing then. Fortunately, the last two weeks are a stand-alone training that they run twice a year, called the Non Technical part (as opposed to the technical training of flying and maintenance). So graciously, MAF allowed us to come to the non-technical training that starts October 8.

So we're heading out to Boise in the morning for two weeks of preparation for living in a different culture. We will learn things like cultural adaptation, cooking from scratch for Heather, a two day marriage seminar to help give us tools to help our marriage overseas. If you think of it, pray that we learn this training well, and that it sticks well in our minds, because there will be several months between the training and our actual departure for Indonesia (which will hopefully be around June, after the baby is born.) Once we get to Indonesia, it will be very handy to remember the things we will learn over the next couple weeks.

A few hair-oriented pictures....

Elise with some serious bed-head

Mommy gives Elise her first ever pony tail

Happy Kid......

What types of things does Elise think about all day? Just ask her! Her response might be "A sucker!" She has, well let's call it an intense liking of succers that stems from a little dance class that Heather has taken her to in St. Joseph. I got to sit in on the class once and watch, and after each activity the teacher did with Elise, Elise would exclaim "A Sucker?!!" So today as we drove down to Indiana from Grand Rapids, we got her one.

A sucker and a chip. Hog heaven for Elise!

Another activity that Elise really likes now is loading things into grocery carts....and then un-loading them. She was very excited that our friends Dick and Donna who we stayed with the past several days had a miniature grocery cart. She would load up things, then distribute them....to anybody who was around. This morning she work up and the first words out of her mouth were "CHECK OUT! CHECK OUT!" The day before I set up a little counter for her to check out at. She lucked out at the Grand Rapids Children's Museum where they had a whole kids play grocery store.

And they had little tricycles for her there too! Complete with helmets.

Back in Grand Rapids

Today we were treated to an old Grand Rapids favorite when our friends Linn and Sharon took us to beautiful Meijer Gardens.

Linn and Sharon


We took Elise to Meijer Gardens about a year ago before we moved away from Grand Rapids. She was only several months old then, and this time she thoroughly enjoyed herself. What was her favorite thing there? By far it was the little kids door to enter the Children's Garden. She loved it! She went through it about 30 times, and we couldn't tear her away from it! We got a lot of pictures of that, and some other fun things there.

Cousins...Basket Rides....Road Trip!

We had a great Memorial day get together, with much of the Kisker clan present. We had all the "cousins" together at one time, and it made for a good photo opportunity!

You can imagine how hard that photo was to set up! Not too easy. Cute kids! Some of them are cousins, some are third cousins, but we'll just think of them as cousins.

Then Elise got a basket ride. This is something mommy started doing with her, and she recruited me to do one while she snapped a photo.

I think we should tie a rope to that thing and let the good times roll!

Tomorrow we are beginning a three week ministry partnership road trip up to Michigan. It's last minute packing and preparations, like we're used to. We're both not big on getting things ready way ahead of time! But I guess it works! We would appreciate prayer for traveling to go well, and for us to be close as a family and content as we step out for a few weeks. We are really excited to see our Grand Rapids church family again, and some good friends who are scattered on the way there and back.

A little fall warm up...

A great place to go in the fall around here is Red Barn farm. Hayrides, picking apples, gourds everywhere. They also have lots of animals for the kids to look at. Well we just barely came into Apple season so we went last weekend. It was so fun watching Elise check out the animals. By far her favorite were the chickens. It was really cute to hear her say "chickens". She insisted on carrying the apple picking bucket the whole time, and she would try to bang the chicken cage and startle the chickens and watch them run around (of course that didn't last long.) It was a really warm day and we barely stuck around long enough to pick a small basket of apples before we headed out. Here's some pics I took!

Haiti

I know the Haiti earthquake seems like "old news" But I found this video yesterday on how our organization, MAF has been able to help in Haiti since the earthquake. It makes me very grateful to be a part of MAF!

The glass is (over) half full!!

Heather and I celebrated a special milestone a few weeks back that we have been meaning to share. We reached the halfway mark of our ministry support team! This means that the Lord has already introduced us to half of those who are joining us in this outreach to the un-reached (at least from a numerical perspective). We celebrated by...well, getting really excited and thanking God But we have been joking about celebrating, just the two of us, by throwing a "glass is half full" party! Does anybody have any creative ideas to boost our somewhat limited creativity. I need something more exciting than having half sandwiches, half glasses of lemonade and a half-pinata.

OK here's those pics of Elise to satisfy those relatives!










Because of what I have mentioned above, we have also enjoyed reflecting back on the first half of our ministry partnership adventure. The thing that sticks out to us most is the people.....you! We have gotten to visit very many special people, and have gotten to know many on a deeper level. What a blessing! Not everybody is lead by the Lord to join our ministry support team, but we still enjoy the blessing of getting to know people better! So many ask "How is this time been for you" and wince waiting for the result. My response, it has been incredible. We have gotten to spend time with so many family, friends, and different churches and have shared that inside glimpse of their lives I mentioned. And we've also had the privilege of inviting folks to invest with us their prayers and resources to join us in this very effective and practical ministry. I still remember that excitement I felt in 2003 when I learned about MAF. I was beside myself at how a 30 minute flight could save that missionary family two weeks of hiking through the jungle. And he could pick up a mom having childbirth complications in another village on the way back to the city, carrying her to a hospital for medical care (I could go on and on but I'll spare you!) So to invite people to invest with us in these things has been a privilege. And to see the way people have been led by the Lord to respond has been humbling, and it helps us know that He is drawing all of us into something bigger than ourselves!

A post, how novel!

Heather and I were at MAF headquarters in Idaho for most of this past week. While we were there, our friend Barb told us about this new online gadget she has that alerts her whenever someone has a new blog post (Hi Barb!). The point being so you don't have to check someone's blog a million times only to find out they still haven't posted anything (sorry, that's what goes on here alot unfortunately). I heard her comment on someone else's post, then she said "and all you guys ever blog about is your cute daughter!" True. A fact that my friend Craig called me out on a few weeks back (in good humor....hi Craig!) So we will just un-ashamedly launch here right back into our multitude of pictures and video of Elise! The other night Elise got a jack-in-the-box, and we rolled with laughter as EACH TIME the jack in the box came out, Elise squealed with delight, clapped her hands and said things like "Funny! More! Again!" (more comes out more like "moye" right now.)



When we were preparing to go out to MAF last week, we realized that we were going to be on the same flight out there with our good freinds Daniel and Joy once we connected in Minneapolis! We were very excited about this. During our month at MAF in January, they were our next door neighbors in the MAF apartments and we got to know them well and enjoyed their upbeat personalities. So here's some video of Elise hanging out with Daniel and Joy in the airport once we met them in Minneapolis.



The reason we went to Idaho was to attend MAF's safety training course. It was really good training on how to be safe when living in another culture. We are very thankful to be a part of an organization that cares about our safety so much and thinks through and plans for safety considerations.

OK, now that you've stuck with the blog post this long, here's the token "big slide show of pictures mostly of Elise!" Have a blessed week!

Wisdom Teeth!

Please pray for Heather, she has her upper wisdom teeth out today! Hopefully the surgery goes well and the surgeon does a good job. Just for fun here's a cute pic of Elise from the other day....



Report....thanks to all who prayed, Heather's surgery and recovery went great!

Then and Now

Last week we visited Columbia, and had fun exploring Rock Bridge park with the Eifferts. Heather and I enjoyed going there when we were first dating. I dug up an old picture we took at Rock Bridge back then, in 2003.



And so here's one from last weekend taken at Rock Bridge!

Home again!...Here's some pics & vids!

Phewh! Heather and I are temporarily finished with a couple months of traveling. It is very good to be home in Missouri. To make up for the lack of posts, let's put up some cute videos of Elise, and some "recent" pictures from the last month or so.



Elise is starting to have fun flirting with herself in the mirror:



I always wanted to capture how much she loves her baby mobile. From the very beginning she has loved it intensely. Heather and I always joke that it was the best four dollars we ever spent. She was actually grumpy and not terribly excited on the day I took video of her and her mobile:

Elise's very first merry-go-round ride:



Then we switch spots:

We had fun visiting our friends Kevin and Elle in Chicago. They are expecting, and due in several weeks! Elise woke up pretty early in the morning (much earlier than anybody else) so I took her on a walk. We paused for a couple timer shots (above)

Elise loves those toys! We are staying with some friends in Grand Rapids who have three grandkids. So they have lots of fun things stocked that Elise has had a lot of fun exploring. Perhaps the funniest is the battery powered frog, that Elise will bring to you and say "ON!" And once you turn it on and it starts hopping towards her and sticking out its tongue, she will run away. It's a very love-hate relationship.

We are heading back from Grand Rapids towards Michigan tomorrow. It has been a very good time here spending time with old church friends. Elise has had a blast with all the kids she has gotten to know. We have really enjoyed getting an inside glimpse of different families lives. It was very fun sharing out ministry with our church last wednesday night too. For me it was definitely a first, speaking for any length of time infront of a lot of people. It was definitely good to start on "friendly turf" with that kind of thing.

Wednesday Night at Christ Church

Our home church in Grand Rapids were very kind to let us be the main speakers at the fall wrap up for the Wednesday night get togethers this Wednesday. We're going to get to share about our ministry and show some pictures and video of how airplanes are helping out in missions. If you're in Grand Rapids we hope to see you there! There's a barbeque open to the public starting at 5:30, then everyone will go inside for some songs, our presentation, and some prayer afterwards. Christ Church is at 2500 Breton Rd SE Grand Rapids.

Mother's Day

I had to put some of these mother's day pictures on here. There's a few more recent ones too!

Home...Thankfully!

In case there's any friends or family that are wondering if I ever made it out of Farmington and back to Missouri, I want to say praise the Lord I am back home! I will spare the details on the car, which would take like ten pages, but on Tuesday, the third establishment that I took my car to looking for answers determined that indeed the car's computer was causing the transmission to malfunction, and the computer was bad and needed to be replaced. But they went ahead and un-plugged the computer from the transmission so it could shift on its own without computer input. Man! Had I only known that was possible two weeks ago! I was outta there so fast! I had never been more excited to leave someplace in my life!! The car did fine all the way home. I spent tuesday afternoon driving through the beautiful high and winding desert roads of New Mexico, headed towards Albuquerque. I spent the night in Santa Rosa, New Mexico and got started very early the next day in hopes of making it home in time to see Elise before she went to bed that night. As I made it into texas, any types of hills, plateaus or mountains gradually went away, as did the desert red dirt and plants, and it was replaced by green farm pasture lands and rolling hills. Eventually the hills went away and around Amarillo it was unbelievably flat. As I made it North from Oklahoma City up into Kansas, the trees, rolling hills, and green grass began to intensify. So did the smell of that grass. It was amazing! Going up into kansas there were some amazing cattle farms with cows scattered across thousands of acres of what I described to Heather as a "cow heaven" with amazing rolling hills of grass, streams, even some trees, and a special bridge for the cows to cross above the highway if they wish! When I left missouri five weeks ago everything was brown and the trees were sticks. Now as I made it into Kansas City and on up to Saint Joseph, I was blown away with the fluffy green trees, and very green grass everywhere, and the smell of it all! I was sad to leave the beauty of the west, but was met by a whole different kind of amazing natural beauty out here!. The best was when I pulled into the house, and Heather and Elise were in the kitchen. Elise was standing there in her diaper and let out a scream of excitement, kept saying "Daddy! Daddy!" and even asked me for kisses throughout the evening. It's good to be home. In a way I am thankful for this whole thing because it gives me a perspective of how much of a blessing it is just to be together, and how blessed we are when things go smoothly.

Grandpa's Week

We remembered my Grandpa Mueller as my mom's side of the family gathered last weekend for his memorial service. Many aunts, uncles, and cousins came. It was very good, and very sad. A friend of the family performed the service and did a wonderful job. There was a military honor guard present at the service as well to honor Grandpa's service in the Army Air Corp. I gathered some pictures into a couple slideshows. The first are some photos from Grandpa's memorial itself. The second slideshow is mainly of the Cousins, Elise, Isla and Logan, who were all three together for the first time last weekend. We went outside at Granny's house on the golf course near sunset. Even baby Audrey, my cousin Tiffanie's baby got in on the action!

Still in Farmington

So I am still in Farmington. The new transmission that was installed.....was not operating properly either. So now that it's the weekend, I get to wait it out until Monday to see if we can get ahold of the suspected transmission control computer somehow, which is not an easy part to get (at least quickly). I was feeling pretty low about this whole thing this morning. In my mind I knew it was not appropriate to feel sorry for myself, but it was really tempting, and I have found myself slipping into that mindset. Also the feeling of missing Heather and Elise, and not exactly knowing when I will see them again was starting to seem overwhelming. So a couple things happened. One that I will never forget. A couple of journeyman electrical workers were sitting in the lobby as I was talking to a friend and explaining what's going on. When I hung up they started to ask me questions about it. Then after they paid for their room, they paid for two nights for me to stay there. One guy said people had done a lot of nice things for him, and he wanted to do something to help me out because I was a long way from home. I was speechless. That was one of the most amazing random acts of generosity I have ever seen. And it cheered me right up!
Later, in the bible, I ran into the story where Mary and Joseph couldn't even get into a hotel to give birth to Jesus. And they seemed to do OK! And as I opened the bible to Ephesians chapter one, just everything right there on those two pages was enough of a reminder for me to say goodbye to feeling sorry for myself (at least for now, hopefully it will last!) What an amazing truth, that we will be the Lord's inheritance, made a part of His family by Christ's sacrifice, that we who were far away have been brought near.

Un-Expected Pit-Stop

Headin' home today, driving through Farmington, New Mexico I got that dreaded surprise that anyone who drives a long distance hopes they don't get.....my transmission went out! Fortunately it still worked well enough to drive in first gear, so I made it to a McDonalds to use the free internet to see if I could find out what I could do. I started to get nervous as the only options I could come up with involved nearly $3,000 and a one week stay in Farmington. I got ahold of someone who sells salvaged transmissions and he happened to have a Saturn. And he referred me to someone who can install it in (hopefully) less than two days. All for less than a thou. Phewh! So knock on wood hopefully they don't give me a lemmon! In a way, this is actually a little bit of a blessing in disguise. We have always known our transmission was fishy (it has been for the last few years), so we were always a little nervous it would go out on us at a bad time. Well it went out on me in Farmington which is a fairly big town. And Heather and Elise are comfortably at home in Missouri. I will be able to use the day or two in the hotel to get stuff done that I need to do anyways. And we get out tranny replaced for a decent price. So all in all that went pretty well. Perhaps the biggest cost I will feel is the extra two days until I get to see Heather and Elise again!

So why don't I put up the token "Elise picture" to cheer this post up:

Elise looking pretty studious in the hotel the other day.

Cotton Candy, Pics, Travelin, etc!

Heather and I wrapped up our stay in Arizona today. I took her to the airport in Phoenix, and enjoyed one last evening with my family (minus mom, who is somewhere in the skies over South America right now).

Yesterday Heather and I enjoyed a special treat. Thanks to the generosity of a friend of my sisters', we enjoyed a free night at a resort in Phoenix last night before Heather and Elise flew back to Missouri this morning. The resort had a water park, and it was really fun watching Elise take it all in. She really loved stumbling around the resort and checking out all the cool fountains. She also enjoyed one of her favorite past-times, which is getting anybody and everybody's attention that she possibly can by waving and smiling at them. At dinner last night she got to try cotton candy for the first time.

When she first saw it, she said "Bunny!" It bears a striking resemblance to the pink bunny that she got for Easter. It took her a while to convince her she was supposed to eat it.

Sharing with mommy!

After dropping Heather and Elise off at the airport, I went back to the hotel to check out and get all the odds and ends loaded in the car. When I walked out of the hotel lobby, I looked up and a Quest Kodiak aircraft passed right over the resort! This is remarkable because I understand that to date I think there only exists something like 20 or 30 Kodiaks. And most of them are overseas, serving in mission aviation. I found a really cool picture taken by an MAF pilot in Indonesia of the "old" plane, the Cessna 206 (the small plane), parked right next to the new plane, the Kodiak.

Now that's a cool picture. Our flight program in Papua plans to replace all of the Cessna 206's with Kodiaks eventually. Twice the payload, at half the fuel cost in a rugged and modern aircraft sounds pretty effective to me! Believe it or not, the Kodiak, though it is quite a bit larger, gets in and out of almost all of the same airstrips that the 206 can.
Enough tech talk. So after Heather, Elise and I said our goodbyes, and after checking out and seeing the Kodiak, I headed back up to Payson and enjoyed one last dinner with family. Two aunts were in town (Suzy and Carmel) and cousin Summer was also in town having just moved here from New Zeland. We ate with Granny and Grandpa at their house, and Kelly, Isla and Buddy came too! Then Carmel took us on a hike (that I am going to be sore from tomorrow!). So tomorrow I begin driving the Saturn back to Missouri to meet back up with Heather and Elise! I will drive two days, staying overnight in Denver. Heather and I get to be in Saint Joseph for about a week, and then it's up to Michigan! Lots of travel, but I feel like we are getting used to it! God has blessed us with great progress and wonderful times with people so far during our ministry partnership phase with MAF.